cob
UK/kɒb//kɑb/
cob noun: a corncob. Also the clipping of cobnut.
Noun (1)
cob (countable and uncountable, plural cobs)
- A corncob.
- The grains, each of which is about the bulk of the largest marrowfat pea, are placed all round a stalk, which goes up the middle, and this little stalk, to which the seeds adhere, is called the Corn Cob.1818, William Cobbett, A Year’s Residence in the United States of America, part I, Clayton and Kingsland, page 18
- I passed some mills in which the grain, cob, and husk were all ground up together for the cattle and hogs….1849, Charles Lyell, A Second Visit to the United States of North America, volume II, Harper & Brothers, page 64
- The seed-bearing head of a plant.
- Examining the cob of the plants now in seed, I found them very full of fine seed.1807, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Essex, page 14
- The following analyses exhibit the composition of the ash of the grain and cob of three specimens, grown on different soils, in Lewis county, in 18471849, New York (State). Legislature. Assembly, Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, page 742
- A male swan.
- In all common streams, and private waters, when cygnets are taken up, the owner of the cob must chuse the first cygnet, and the pen the next, and so in order….1664, John Witherings, “The Orders, Laws, and Ancient Customs of Swans”, in The Harleian Miscellany, volume VII, published 1810, page 292
- The cob waddled out onto the island and looked in the nest.1970, E. B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan, HarperCollins, published 2000, →ISBN, page 22
- A gull, especially the black-backed gull (Larus marinus); also spelled cobb.
- Here is also the pica marina or seapye many sorts of Lari, seamewes & cobs.1668, Thomas Browne, "Notes on Certain Birds Found in Norfolk", in Notes and Letters on the Natural History of Norfolk, Jarrold & Sons (1902), pages 8–9
- On Saturday the 28th we saw a whale, two sea-wolves, and two penguins; in the afternoon there appeared great numbers of ospreys, and sea-cobs, and we met with some sea-grass, with long leaves.1773, Antoine-Joseph Pernety, The History of a Voyage to the Malouine (or Falkland), page 178
- A lump or piece of anything, usually of a somewhat large size, as of coal, stone, or excrement.
- A round, often crusty roll or loaf of bread.
- The cob was a cracknel or simnel made of fine flour.1877, Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, The Early Statutes of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Chichester, J. B. Nichols and Sons, page 38
- …I sat there and broke the crust of my cob of bread.1958, Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy, Nonpareil, published 1982, →ISBN, page 86
- A building material consisting of clay, sand, straw, water, and earth, similar to adobe; also called cobb, rammed earth or pisé.
- The poore Cotager contenteth himſelfe with Cob for his wals, and Thatch for his couering….1602, Richard Carew, The Svrvey of Cornwall, new edition (1769), page 53
- The walls are of cob, the external ones being about 2 feet 8 inches thick, and rest on a stone foundation.1889, T. N. Brushfield, "The Birthplace of Sir Walter Raleigh", in Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art, volume XXI, W. Brendon &...
- A horse having a stout body and short legs.
- If he comes to you riding a cob…1828, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, "A Letter of Advice", in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, volume 23, part II, S. and H. Bentley, page 543
- He was well-mounted upon a sturdy chestnut cob, and had the graceful seat of an experienced horseman….1841, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume II, Chapman and Hall, page 289
- Any of the gold and silver coins that were minted in the Spanish Empire and valued in reales or escudos, such as the piece of eight—especially those which were crudely struck and irregularly shaped.
- …he put his Hand in his Pocket and pull’d out ſome Gold, ſome Broadpieces and a Gold Cob….1701, Daniel Mac-Cay, testimony in the trial of Patrick Hurly, transcribed in A Complete Collection of State-Trials, and Proceedings upon High-Treason, and Other Crimes and Misdemeanours, volume 5...
- They fancied, that he who sold a Stone of Wool for Two Cobs, callid 9s. when Cobs were raised would sell his Stone for a Cob and a half when called 9s.1718, Observations on raising the value of money, page 4
- One who is eminent, great, large, or rich.
- I ſaw fleſh bluddie toe ſlauer, / When the cob had maunged the gobets foule garbaged haulfe quick.1583, Richard Stanyhurst (tr.), The First Fovre Bookes of Virgils Æneis, Henrie Bynneman, page 86
- But I would not haue a few rich cobs to get into their clowches almoſt whole countries, ſo as the poore can haue no releefe by them.1583, Phillip Stubbes, The Second Part of the Anatomie of Abuses, N. Trübner & Co. (1882), page 27
- A spider (cf. cobweb).
- A small fish, the miller's thumb.
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- A large fish, especially the kabeljou (variant spelling of kob).
- The head of a herring.
- The first red herring that was broil’d in Adam and Eve’s kitchen, do I fetch my pedigree from, by the Harrot’s book. His Cob was my great-great-mighty-great grandfather.1598, Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour, in The Modern British Drama, 3rd volume, James Ballantyne and Co. (1811), page 5
- …not a Scrap of him, but the Cobs of the two Herrings, the Fiſhermen had eaten, remained of him….1599, Thomas Nashe, “Lenten Stuffe”, in The Harleian Miscellany, volume VI, published 1745, page 156
- A tower or small castle on top of a hill.
- Perhaps though in time one may make them to yield, But 'tis pretty'st Cob-Castle e'er I beheld.1689, Charles Cotton, Poems on Several Occasions, page 197
- There is a small cob on this hill by some supposed to have been a fort: if it was, it must have been a very small one; tho' I rather take it for a tumulus than an exploratory tower.1768, Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours, of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World., page 114
- A thresher.
- Who can make the worm a cob to thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff.1667, John Wilkins, A Discourse concerning the Gift of Prayer, etc, page 59
- A cylinder with pins in it, encoding music to be played back mechanically by a barrel organ.
- A person of mixed black and white ancestry, especially a griffe; a mulatto.
- […] but he does not say whether the nobleman is a mulatto or half-caste, or what advantage is to be derived from purchasing a cob belonging to "a dark-brown nobleman."1885, Stanley Harris, The Coaching Age, London: R. Bentley and son, page 237
- The young mother was darker than either of her parents, and might be taken for a cob (the offspring of a mulatto and a negro), but the baby looked to be almost pure Indian.1902, Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, page 214
Verb (1)
cob (third-person singular simple present cobs, present participle cobbing, simple past and past participle cobbed)
- To construct using mud blocks or to seal a wall using mud or an artificial equivalent.
- Windows and other details can be cobbed into place, and niches and reliefs are easy to create.2004, Joe Kennedy, Building Without Borders: Sustainable Construction for the Global Village, →ISBN, page 178
- The technique appeals to alternative builders because of its ability to be sculpted, its use of waste materials, and its pest resistant properties. Each course is tamped down, or "cobbed," to impart strength and to aid in curing.2009, Marian Keeler, Bill Burke, Fundamentals of Integrated Design for Sustainable Building, →ISBN, page 304
- To have the heads mature into corncobs.
- Ninety Day came to maturity very early and cobbed plentifully, but the grain proved shallow and lacking in meal.1907, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales - Volume 17, page 731
- Corn was a bumper crop and cobbed much above average so that silage will be above average in feeding value.1951, Monthly Crop & Live Stock Report - Volumes 368-416, page 14
- To remove the kernels from a corncob.
- Darning socks, knitting, fancy work, cooking, housework, cobbing corn.1969, Jim Henderson, Open Country Calling: People and Places Out of Town, page 82
- Here are some of the pople who made this yearbook easy to live with: […] David Littlejohn and Martin Munroe for their concessions, All the people who cobbed corn, Sara Perry for her steadfastness and warm smile in the coffee shop, […]1976, Lisgar Collegiate Institute, Vox Lycei 1975-1976, page 21
- To thresh.
- The price paid for cobbing (separating the seed from the straw) and drawing the seed of red and white clover is from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. the bushel of 5 stone of seed.1847, British Farmer's Magazine - Issue 10, page 510
- In the new machine under notice, clover can be "cobbed" and "hulled" or "drawn," and the seed delivered in one operation, the whole being done at the stack side in the open air and in one-thired of the time previously occupied.1897, The British Trade Journal - Volume 35, page 235
- To break up ground with a hoe.
- I have in this manner cobbed, with great success, lands that had formerly been in tillage, which would no longer bring corn because they were exhausted, either by consecutive crops or by the great quantity of weeks, which impoverished them: these became as good as my regularly cobbed lands.1762, Louis François Henri de Menon (Marquis de Turbilly.), A discourse on the cultivation of waste and barren lands, page 90
Verb (2)
cob (third-person singular simple present cobs, present participle cobbing, simple past and past participle cobbed)
- To beat with a flat instrument; to paddle.
- […] he pulled off his hat, and said he was going to cob him for breaking the rules and laws of the ship’s company.1803, Andrew Mitchell, "Extract from the Trial of the Mutineers on board the Bantry Bay Squadron", The Annual Register, volume XLIV, R. Wilks, page 556
- White prisoners, and sometimes black ones, are put into the dungeon, and ironed; and black prisoners have been “cobbed.”1862, United States Senate, Senate Documents - Volume 172, page 19
- To throw, chuck, lob.
- Well, sir, I’m sure I’d be rid of it fast enough if I could naut cob it away like a stoan.1862, Philip Gilbert Hamerton (quoting a Lancashire shepherd), A Painter’s Camp in the Highlands, volume I, Macmillan and Co., page 69
- Each had a stone in his grasp in an instant, and simultaneously they cobbed at Master Bunnie.1878, Robert Richardson, "How the Fight was Stopped", in The Young Cragsman, And Other Stories, William Oliphant and Co., page 72
- To chip off unwanted pieces of stone, so as to form a desired shape or improve the quality of mineral ore.
- A ſhade or ſhelter from the weather, under which the Cobbers cob the Ore.1778, William Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, James Phillips, page 327
- Pyrites with galena, gangue, and a little blende—separately cobbed, with other material of the same nature, by expert workers to minimize the quantity of dust, and then yielding: […]1884, Wheaton Bradish Kunhardt, The Practice of Ore Dressing in Europe, page 20
Noun (2)
cob (plural cobs)
- A punishment consisting of blows inflicted on the buttocks with a strap or a flat piece of wood.
- Such negro so offending shall receive fifteen cobbs or paddles for every such offence.October 28 1828/9?, J. Ross, Cherokee Laws
Verb (3)
cob (third-person singular simple present cobs, present participle cobbing, simple past and past participle cobbed)
- Of an animal: to nibble at their skin with their front teeth.
Noun (3) capitalized: COB
COB (plural COBs)
- Initialism of contingency operating base.
- Acronym of chief of boat.
- Initialism of close of business; the end of day on a business day.
- Near-synonym: EOD (“end of day”)
- The NY office told the LA office to ensure the report was emailed by COB.
- Initialism of centre of buoyancy
- Initialism of coordination of benefits
- Initialism of chairman of the board
- Initialism of chip on board (an LED module or integrated circuit bonded to a circuit board)
Proper noun capitalized: COB
COB
- Clive's Original Band, band started by Clive Palmer after he left The Incredible String Band.
- Abbreviation of Cobourg.
Noun (4) capitalized: CoB
CoB (plural CoBs)
- Initialism of centre of buoyancy.
Also used as
cob is also the clipping of cobnut.
cob is also the abbreviation of cobble.
cob is also the alternative form of COB.
cob meaning in Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati and Persian
cob in Marathi
- कोब करणे
cob in Bengali
- কোব করা
cob in Gujarati
- કોબ કરવા
cob in Persian
- building material of clay, sand, straw, water, and earth
- کاهگل kâhgel, ارزخ arzax
More languagesFewer languages
- Kashmiri
- أنٛز ạnz
Examples of cob in a sentence
- Dad had placed a cob of corn on a stump for the jays, who bickered over it non-stop.1994, Douglas Coupland, Life After God, Washington Square Press,, →ISBN, page 80:
- About the end of October last, as an experiment, I selected seed from a Hickory King cob of above and planted twenty rows with from twenty to thirty seeds in each row, rows three feet apart.1909, Cape of Good Hope (Colony). Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope - Volume 35, page 108:
- One of the branches developed into a fully-formed cob, though it was thinner than the normal cob of the variety.1931, Indian Botanical Society, The Journal of the Indian Botanical Society, page 22:
- The cob will defend the nest and the eggs.2008, Nicole Helget, Swans, Creative Education,, →ISBN, page 22:
Synonyms of cob
Antonyms
Forms of cob
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cobs |
| plural | COBs |
| plural | CoBs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cobs |
| present participle | cobbing |
| past participle | cobbed |
| past | cobbed |
Origin of cob
Of uncertain origin. The word has many disparate senses, which are likely of diverse origin. The specifics of these origins have long been debated, as has the question of which senses arise from which origins. At least the swan sense originated in Middle English cobbe (“male swan; gang leader; bully”). Some other senses likely originated as a variant of cop (“head, top, peak, summit”). In other senses, the word may be related to cub, itself of obscure origin but possibly from Old Norse kobbi (“seal”). However, many alternative etymologies have been proposed to account for some or all senses of cob; various sources have related it, for example, to English cot (“cottage”), Welsh cob (“top, tuft”), or German Kübel (“large container”). All these etymologies are disputed, and the exact origins of cob cannot be known with any certainty.
Uncertain. Possibly onomatopoeic, but it has also been suggested that the word could be a continuation of Middle English cobbe (“fight”), a borrowing of Welsh cob (“blow”), or a cognate of Icelandic kubba (“chop”).
Uncertain likely from resemblance to the action of eating corn off a cob.
Words formed from cob
Phrases with cob
Words that rhyme with cob
Questions about cob
- What does cob mean?
- Cob means a corncob.
- What is cob in Marathi?
- Cob in Marathi is कोब करणे. See Cob meaning in Marathi.
- How do you use cob in a sentence?
- Dad had placed a cob of corn on a stump for the jays, who bickered over it non-stop.
- What part of speech is cob?
- Cob can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce cob?
- Cob is pronounced /kɑb/ (US).
- What is the plural of cob?
- The plural of cob is cobs.
Words near cob in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cob (page history and authors); COB (page history and authors); CoB (page history and authors); cob (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cob (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cob (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-cob.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cob.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cob. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.